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Deep conversations with underrated lawyers.
This is Horam with Horam's Quoram. My guest today is Kalpana Srinivasan. Kalpana is known as one of the top trial lawyers in the country. She's also cochair of one of the leading trial firms in the country, Sussman Godfrey. That is a rare combination.
Khurram Naik:So I took this opportunity to explore themes in Kalpana's career and professional decisions. There's a ton of great principles covered in this conversation. Here's Kalpana. Alright, Kalpana. I am so excited to pick up this conversation.
Khurram Naik:Thanks for sitting down with me today.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Thank you so much for having me, Kurum. I'm really excited, and I've really enjoyed the opportunity getting to talk to you in advance of this.
Khurram Naik:Cool. Well, so I I have to start with this part of your life that I think is gonna be so interesting to explore because I think a lot of people observing if I pull up your bio, super impressive trial lawyer, and I see all these different accolades. And I think not a lot of people would guess that one of your big things is hip hop dancing. And so I wanted to spend a little time learning about, you know, what what's the story of how you came to this kind of dance, and, you know, what what part does it play in your life now?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Sure. And it's a subject that I like to talk about these days. I would say four or five years ago, I started spending a lot of time walking down in my neighborhood past this dance studio. And I thought to myself, oh, that's so cool. I'd always enjoyed dance casually, but I was like, I I probably can't go into a studio and start taking classes.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I don't I don't have time for that. I'm not in the right age demographic for that. But then I sort of thought that was silly and I should give it a go because it looked like people were really enjoying themselves. And I I also found a lot of the things that I did outside of work, which were great, were not always requiring mental focus or challenging in that kind of way. And I just had a sense that dance might be different than trying to go to a yoga class or meditate.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I know you do successfully, but some of us are not so good at keeping our mind from wandering. So I was really looking for something that might be both something I would enjoy, but also maybe train a different way of thinking in addition to having the physical aspect of it. So started going to these classes near where I lived in the time at West Hollywood and found that I really just loved it. It was like the one segment of my day or whenever I was dancing where I truly was not looking at my phone or trying to actively figure out some work issue, mostly because I was not skilled enough as a dancer to miss a few minutes. That would be very bad.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I need every minute of that instruction and following every eight count. Otherwise, I'm gonna be lost. And what I discovered is that in and of itself was kind of a level of mental discipline to be in a something where I was learning choreography, and these are choreographed classes. You're learning a new piece of choreography like every class to really be able to train your mind to focus singularly on something very intensely for an hour or ninety minutes. And then also, of course, the movement and trying to get more in touch with your own body and what it can do.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And sometimes when we are in roles where we're very cerebral, spending a lot of time in our mind, we forget that the ability to control what your body does is the function of your mind too. So all of these things, in addition to having a great time, were really very fulfilling. And then added added benefit, I got to meet all these super interesting people, people from very different walks of life, different age groups, different backgrounds, people who wanna be professional dancers and go on tour to people who are doing it recreationally like me. And that was a real treat too because I think as you get older and you're more involved in your professional life, you meet people who tend to be like you, and it gets harder and harder to meet people who are in in different phases of their life or trying to do something really different. So I appreciated all aspects of that, and it continues to be a big part of my nonwork life.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I it's something that I view as more than just like a workout. It's something I actively have been trying to get better at and and improve on and take and train to do harder choreography and different kinds of choreography so that I'm sort of expanding and growing that way too.
Khurram Naik:Can you say some more about the benefit of meeting people from different walks of life? What what what impact what's the tangible impact that has on you? I mean, I can easily imagine trial lawyer, it's good to understand people and how to make decisions, and that's good for jury work. But, I mean, anything beyond that?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I think as a human, understanding other humans should be part of our mission every day. And one of the things that attracted me to being in Los Angeles when I started my practice was that there are so many people here who do work or in areas of their life that are so distinct from what I do. And I really appreciated that because there's something to to be learned there. And, you know, in these classes, and I'm interacting with sometimes people who are substantially younger than me, and that's cool too in its own way. But, you know, just hearing about the things they're interested in or what they're trying to accomplish, where they came from, yes, it is valuable as trial lawyer to to understand different types of people because you may be in juries before juries in any part of the country.
Kalpana Srinivasan:But I think it's more fundamental than that. I think as a human, I don't want myself to be restricted understanding the humans who are like me, who are or to some subgroup of, you know, maybe I interact with lawyers only or something like that. That is not, I think, to me, an enriching life, and I want the benefit of meeting all these kinds of people and trying to see where they're coming from and and look at things a little bit differently. And I think that we we all benefit when we do that, step outside ourselves a little bit.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. And I I also I think it's cool because it would be easy to you know, with the with the wins you've had professionally, it'll be easy to double down on things that you're good at rather than do things that you are you may very well be the most skillful dancer in that class. You could be. But, you know, it just seems like the odds are stacked that, say, the 20 or whatever who's trying to make a career out of this is is probably taking this more seriously than you are. And so I think it's good to put yourself in a position where you're challenged in that way where, like, you you're not likely to feel the most experienced or skillful in the room.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Absolutely. That is I think it's so important to push yourself that way too, and you can be assured I'm not the best one in the room. But I think it's important to to to step out of yourself that way as well. And sometimes, you know, I have a dance teacher I work with a lot, and she'll want me to be in a solo or a small group or be videoed. And I think to myself, well, look, if I can get up and argue in front of a courtroom of people, I should be able to get up and do this, you know, 35 of dance in front of a group of some strangers and some new friends.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I think kind of pushing yourself that way, as you say, has has a lot of benefit. And, again, you are trying to get outside your mind, trying to to push yourself in different ways, be a little uncomfortable, and figure out what you need to work on, not just in the place that always feels safe or feels, known to you. And I I agree with you. I think that has huge benefits to be a little bit outside your comfort zone and something you're really excited about, but not always gravitating the thing you know you're gonna do naturally. So I think for me, that's been a huge benefit too.
Khurram Naik:And you mentioned, you know, the decision to stay in LA, and and so you were considering you know, you you expected to return DC for work, after clerking in California, and then you decided to stay in LA. And I remember from our previous conversation, you you framed that as a gut decision. And so when you mentioned the the different walks of life, was that something you knew at the time as part of your gut decision, or something you you figured out for yourself later on?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I think I felt something very strong in the moment, and I've had that a few times in my life, in my career, where I've just had a feeling. And I can't necessarily put my finger on it, but it's like, this feels right. Being in this environment feels right. And that's I've come to LA to clerk, never lived here, had no connections here, very strongly believed I was only gonna spend a year here and really tried to learn the city, do stuff in my what I expected to be my one year here. But then I just felt very at ease, and I thought I had a a sense that I would enjoy being here.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And if my sense was wrong, obviously, we have other options and choices we can make along the way, but I do think sometimes you can feel a pull to something that you don't may not necessarily be logical. I didn't have any connection to this city. I hadn't summered here. I hadn't even investigated the job market for lawyers, but I had a sense that this was gonna be a good place for me. So I think it was very much driven by gut.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And then later, when I look back, I could further rationalize it. California is a great market, of course. It's also a great place to be a plaintiff's lawyer, which is primarily what I do now. And it has there's a lot of opportunities for young lawyers, which I think at the time, again, I wasn't focused on those aspects. So I just had a a feeling.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. Mhmm. And you mentioned other gut decisions you made. What are some other ones that you've made that you feel were, like, gut decisions?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I well, before when I was in college, I was very interested in journalism. I was writing for the daily college paper at the time, and I spent a summer interning for the Associated Press in Hartford, Connecticut. And that was fun. It it was really fun to be working for, like, a daily news service, and the I like the deadlines and the demands of that. Hartford was an interesting place given all the different things going on there too.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I had decisions to make when I was graduating from college about whether I should try something else, start focusing on other options, or continue to pursue journalism. And the AP had a pro the the program at that time came with a job offer, but you had to take it wherever it was. It could be put you in the middle of the country in a place you knew nothing about. It could be And and, frankly, at the time, it was more likely that you wouldn't be in a big city, and you'd be somewhere else to start. So I said, I really enjoy this work.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Wherever it takes me, I'm gonna give it a go. And so I said, yes. I'm gonna take whatever job they offer me because you don't get to sit around and wait for your place of choice. That was based on gut to accept that a little bit blindly. It turned out very fortuitously, and this is luck unrelated to my own instinctual choice, that I got placed in Washington DC covering city politics and the city, story, city news, which was very unexpected.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I really had no I didn't plan at all that I was gonna be in a in a city market like that, that I was gonna be near a bunch of friends who were also gonna be in DC. I just assumed I would probably be, in a small town in some part of the country where I didn't know anybody. So that was a real gift. And then the second fortuitous thing that happened is that our city bureau merged with the National Bureau of the Associated Press in DC. They just consolidated, which had something that had been in the works at the time that I was hired, I guess.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so they were a little bit uncertain what to do with me because I was a new hire who was there to cover city news, and I got absorbed into this bigger operation of a national desk, which was truly a piece of luck because most people spend much of their career trying to get to that national bureau position. And from that platform, I was able to cover all kinds of stories, and then eventually got a beat. And I was covering media policy and technology, which really spurred my interest in learning more and I think being more on the advocacy side than just the reporting side. I I was covering up policy decisions and congressional actions, and then I started covering a lot of cases at the DC circuit, challenges to the 96 telecom act. And it just made me start thinking about being more involved as opposed to being what you are expected to as a daily reporter, which is an observer largely.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So and an important one who shapes the way people understand and process that news. But I think that that ultimately led me to apply to law school. So I think that was a combination of making a choice that felt right along with some very lucky hand that I was given. So I I think there are decisions like that where I've been very instinctive based, I would say. I met my spouse at a wedding and of our mutual friends, and he he's Irish and was living in Ireland at the time.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So that was a very instinctive feeling that this was the person who is gonna potentially gonna play an important role in my life and that through a much longer journey played itself out as well. But definitely also had that that feeling that was something different than trying to map out the logistics of it.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. That's interesting. So these different spheres in life, you're willing to follow decisions regard without regard, to whether papers you know, like, how it looks on paper or or or it's there's some analytical criteria involved. But, yes, this checks out. This is why this makes sense.
Khurram Naik:Well, in the examples you gave professionally, what was interesting about them is you identified the factors that you capitalized on, the the luck aspect of that. And I wonder now now that you've experienced some of this luck in this way, whether you have a point of view on things that, let's say, lawyers specifically, maybe early in the career or otherwise, can do to position themselves to be the beneficiary of luck. You you can't control it, but are there things you can do to, you know, make an asymmetric bet of some kind that where where you're a beneficiary of luck?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I think as lawyers, our universe of risk depending on what you do is not that broad. It could be for some people, but in general, if you're in, like, a traditional private practice, the universe is limited. And sometimes I think there's a sense that you're going out on a limb taking some crazy risk because you picked a firm that was really small or you decided to go even though everybody was pointing in the direction of a traditional big law firm, defense side work, you chose to go to a plaintiff shop. These are, I think, moderately not that risky choices because you can probably change if it turns out not to be the best fit for you. But I think that more of that is what increases the opportunity and the potential for some good old fashioned good luck.
Kalpana Srinivasan:For me, I made this decision to live in Los Angeles, and I didn't really know about Tussman Godfrey at the time. I knew a little bit about it because my co clerk was from Houston, and she was planning to come go back to Houston where the firm was based and had a big office. And then I knew somebody else who was working in our office at the time. Our office was four people. And if you had asked me in law school if I wanted to go work in an office of four people, I'd say absolutely not.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I'm a social person. I need more engagement. It seems risky. What if you don't like those people? And but I think at that moment in my life, I was more receptive to it.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I was already making this big change to live in LA. And so I went to go to the office, and it was it was like beautiful chaos. Everybody was running around, deep, getting ready for trials and doing real stuff. And I thought to myself, this is something different. It feels different.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Feels very different from any other law firm I've ever interviewed in or summoned in or worked in. And that's what I wanna try. I wanna try because I can go somewhere bigger or different if it's not the right flavor for me. And I think what I would say is that, again, it's not like these are risks, that are on the outer bounds, but I do think people taking more of them and observing and looking at what might be a chance that's different, what's different out there. Those are the things that often present the the best opportunities because you're not even thinking of them.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And in my case, it gave me an opportunity to to be in this practice where I got to do all kinds of things as a young lawyer. But I didn't think about it at the time, but it also gave me a chance to help develop and and cultivate a growing operation in our LA office. And I wouldn't have had that had I gone somewhere bigger, more established in this market. And, again, I think that you have to be willing to step outside some norms or some things that you're, like, that might feel natural or comfortable. And then that's where some of these great opportunities, whether they're luck or timing, that can find you.
Khurram Naik:So I think it might be helpful to get a little more tangible or practical. I I think it's helpful to have, like, varying levels of of of, you know, of abstraction or or concreteness in exploring how you think about these decisions. And so let's say, I think a really common scenario, I think, particularly in California, so many firms are looking to grow in California, you know, East Coast firms looking to grow in California or international firms. And so a really common fact pattern you find is that lawyers are considering, okay. Here's this growing office, call it a satellite office, call it a small office, whatever you wanna call it, at a established brand, let's say.
Khurram Naik:And so how do you think through that decision of of, yeah, there's a lot of upside in potentially having you know, being on the ground floor, something that's growing and influencing the direction of its growth? And yet there's some risk there too that, you know, law firms do close down offices and say, hey. You know, we tried, and this is kind of the you know, we gave it a go, and we really can't grow in this practice area or or this office the way we thought we would. How how do you think about that, or or how would you counsel someone who at different stages of their career, maybe their partner, maybe their associate, considering a move like that?
Kalpana Srinivasan:It it's really important to understand what your role and your visibility is going to be. It's great to be at a place that has a great reputation and is a brand name or is well known. I think those are can be really wonderful tools. But at the end of the day, if you're at a firm that has a prestigious reputation, but you get no airplay, I don't that is going to limit your ability to grow. It's not enough to say, I'm a great litigator at such and such firm that nobody has the opportunity to ever see.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I think the critical factor should be what is your going your individual role going to be? Are you going to get if you're an associate, are you gonna get cases where you get to interact with the clients and opposing counsel? You get stand up time. Are you gonna take depots? Are you gonna argue?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Because, ultimately, those are the seeds for future business development of yourself, which is that people have seen you in action. People know you as a known element. If you're a partner, are you going to be in a leadership role internally in the firm? Are you gonna get the support you need to go out and develop your business externally? So I think there's a component of it that's really important, which is that the reality is down the road, clients hire firms, but they hire individuals.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm.
Kalpana Srinivasan:They hire people. And if you're if you choose to go to a firm that's opening a new shop because it has a great reputation, it could be a great opportunity, but I think you still need to understand what your role what your individual opportunities are gonna be there. Because, again, at the end of the day, saying that you're a litigator at such and such firm is not really as impactful as saying I got to do these things in my career. I had the opportunity to handle this big argument. I these other lawyers get to see me on the other side of their cases, and now they wanna refer cases to me.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so I think that's the to me, that's always and when I talk to young lawyers, whether they're coming to our firm or going elsewhere, I always say, you should know what you're going to be doing. You, not what they do, not a firm that has all these brand name cases. That's cool. What are you gonna be doing? And what will you be doing as a partner?
Kalpana Srinivasan:And what will your compensation structure be? It's so the I think the reputation of the firm can be very important, but it should never supersede your understanding of your own path there.
Khurram Naik:And to get really concrete then, what are the kinds let's say they're interviewing. What are the kinds of questions they can ask as associate and as a partner to diligence that? And, of course, you ultimately you don't really know and just you have to kinda take a leap of faith at some level based on the representations we're getting and the information you're gathering or reading between lines. But as best as you can, what are the kinds of questions you would be asking that would diligence that?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Yeah. For an associate, I would ask first of all, I'd wanna talk to as many associates as I can. And I when associates interview, I always say, you're welcome to inner talk to me or come to me probably towards the end, but the most important people you need to talk to are the associates who are more like you. And you need to ask them, what is it that you do every day? Tell me about your week.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Tell me about your last two months. Tell me about the most interesting thing you did in the last six months. And not in, like, a comp in a confrontational or test kind of way, which is not the recommendation for somebody who's interviewing for a job, but in a if what am I gonna be doing? What's a realistic expectation of what I'm gonna be doing here? And getting a little bit more granular than just you're gonna get hands on experience.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Okay. Well, let's put some meat on the bone. What did this I'm interviewing for a job as an associate. Let me ask five associates what they did in the last week, month, their day to day work schedule is like, and what kind of work they've been doing more specifically, not just the cases they're staffed on, but the kinds of arguments they've gotten to do, the depositions if they have, the kinds of teamwork. Do they get to interface with the client?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Those are the kinds of questions, again, phrased in a appropriate way that I will wanna know if I was an associate rather than what matters are you working on? Because there are gonna be some impressive cases out there. But if you're writing one section of one brief on a case, that's pretty different than being the person who gets up and argues the dispositive motion on that case. And I think that's what that's those are the kinds of questions I think associates should wanna know. They should wanna know they should be able to see what their life would be like if they started at the firm tangibly.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And then for partners, I really and this some of this has to do culturally with how our firm is and how I grew up in the practice, but we're very transparent with our partnership and even with our associates about numbers, financials, how the firm is doing. And our our partners have a very clear understanding of our compensation structure. We don't have some black box type formula mechanism for paying people. And I think if I was somebody who was interviewing to be a partner, I'd wanna know what that structure is like. I'd want it to be clear to me because I think making an informed choice is very important.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And knowing whatever you choose, whatever system, whatever universe you end up in that you knew about you knew how that happened. You knew the business of what you're signing up for. I think partners and senior associates or people at that level need to understand the business aspect of of firm life. And so their interviewing should be including that piece of it too very critically.
Khurram Naik:You know, I wanna go back to you were talking about going to go work for the AP, and you were willing to be carted off the middle of nowhere to to do this kind of work because you assessed the opportunity was was worth it to you. And then in LA, you're willing to join a firm that you weren't super familiar with. You but you sized up and said, boy, this is different, and there's something different here. I don't really understand it yet. Tiny office.
Khurram Naik:Not a lot of people had gone for that. The states you're at, somebody who just clerked would have a lot of options, and any number of people would go for certainty perhaps. So maybe in the first case, you're willing to sacrifice, you know, where you're gonna live in the country and that sort of control you had over your career. Maybe in this other phase, you're willing to sacrifice certainty, let's say, for for what your career would look like at that phase. Today, what are you willing to sacrifice you think your your peers, otherwise I mean, just as husband, just me in general, you know, comparably experienced litigators.
Khurram Naik:What are you willing to sacrifice do you think other people aren't?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I do still pick up and move a lot for these trials, which some people are that's not what they want out of life at a certain stage and how you balance that with other things, including having responsibilities to your family. But that feeling of being and it's not just trying the case. I think it's the that very unique feeling of being together in this environment where you're really focused on one thing, the trial, and you're working really intensely with a group of people is really a remarkable thing. And it's in even still, something that I, you know, kind of you look down the pike and you're like, oh, I'm gonna be away. I'm gonna be living in this place that's could be last year, I was in Jacksonville, Florida for upwards of two months.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I was in Delaware. I was in Waco. So you you may be in all these other parts of the country, but when you're there, you're in this really special moment of having, I think, the both the demands and the freedom to really focus on one thing and then to be with a group where you develop such a unique relationship and bond. And I and I understand why that is not for everybody to do in their career because there it comes with its own challenges, even keeping up with your other cases and your new clients and being able to manage all of that. I think the other thing is being willing for me to spend the time to figure out what kinds of cases I want.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I am not going to take every case. I'm not and there's a lot of things that I now especially that I pass on or just decline because I don't think it's a good fit or even some matters that perhaps in another universe that maybe you would take them. But I think that I think that's part of learning to be very strategic and selective about how you utilize your time and your skill. And there are things that maybe I've given up in that process that somebody else wouldn't, some opportunities. But, you know, one of the things that I've learned over time is you need to save room.
Kalpana Srinivasan:You need to save room for those things that might arise. And so that, by nature, means turning down things that I think some other people may not have. But and especially if your practice is plaintiff's focus, you you might be keeping your powder dry for something by saying no to something else, which is still income generating, but is not perhaps your highest and best use. So that is, I think, a hard skill that everybody has to learn it to some degree, which is feeling okay with saying no, and declining something that you could do. You're not incapable of doing it, but is perhaps not part of the long term plan.
Khurram Naik:Well, on that note, let's say in my work as a recruiter, like, I I I subscribe the belief too. You know, I've been very influenced by Warren Buffett. He says swing for the pat pat pitches. And so I I think that's I I I value that myself, and so I think I also leave room in my schedule and and and otherwise for for those fat pitches. And I think the tool that I use to do that is pretty straightforward.
Khurram Naik:You can assign a dollar value to to candidate and then their potential comp, and then so then you're able to understand, okay. Well, what's my baseline that I'm looking to do for placement? So that's a that's a quantifiable tool I can have in my head to quickly assess whether this is something worth that I should be allocating my time to. And then also, you know, saving room again for my other clients so that I can really do everything I need to do for them as well. So in your case, how do you when you're swinging for these pat fab pitches, what's the criteria you're using for saying, hey.
Khurram Naik:Does this meet my threshold or not?
Kalpana Srinivasan:It's a combination. I obviously looking for those cases that are, significant in nature in terms of what's involved, what's at stake, because I think those are the cases that for you to do some of your most interesting work and then things that are also interesting to you, and that can be pretty wide ranging. That can be things that are very sort of intellectually demanding. Some cases have involve very developing areas to the law, or it can be something that you feel like is just exciting to take on maybe because it's a little bit different than what you have been working on. And I think that can vary at any moment.
Kalpana Srinivasan:There are times where I get a case that might be a little more straightforward than a very complex IP or antitrust dispute. And it's really exciting to have that in your mix to free your mind a little bit. And then there are the cases that you know are going to be bet the company on one side or the other. And I think those always you know, they're often going to be hard fought, but are also cases that are in one way or the other high reward, whether it is defending a client who is their their key business is on the line or very important aspect of their business is on the line, and they are looking to you to solve that problem. Or as a plaintiff pursuing an entity that where your claims go to the heart of their business practice, you know that that is going to be something that typically involves a lot of work, strategy, effort.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I think that those are appealing to have as cases that are worth pursuing, especially when you have the right tools and platform to do it.
Khurram Naik:And I think it sounds like some of what you're referencing when you're saying being strategic about how you're deploying your skills. So some of is saying, hey. Am I allocating some effort to really hard stuff that's high stakes? And then also some stuff that is a nice break from that and just, you know, maybe a more plausible win and just, you know, just keeps the momentum going. Can you say some more about how you're being strategic about your skill set?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Yes. And I I sometimes it's hard to know in advance, especially you might have a case where you think this is going to be and we pursue every case as though we're gonna try it. So we plan that way, and I think that's part of the planning that you have to undertake. You're gonna take a case. You're gonna have to try it.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Now you might take a case, and beef before you're even on file, you may be in the position of trying to resolve it, or there may be some business opportunity that arises between the parties that leads to something that ends quicker than you had planned. So there's some aspect of it that you don't always can't always foresee. But I would say for myself in terms of being selective, I look for things that I would think keep me excited and fresh about the profession, I think, a professional side. There are definitely times where I have looked at my practice and docket of cases and said, this is great. I could use a little more of x and a little less of y, And that might inform why somebody comes to me with the next case, and maybe I maybe I don't take that case even though I might have in a different time period because I already have a lot of cases in that particular area.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Again, I think that making sure you can be thinking about things in fresh ways and that you feel you're being challenged and invigorated is important. It's really important in this job where you're spending so much of your time. You have to have some of that to keep you motivated. And so for me, that might be moving some cases or or kind of reallocating the distribution of cases if I feel like, gosh. I got a lot of patent cases on my docket.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I I have the ARC of those, and I they're all maybe on a similar timeline. And so now I want to focus on some other cases that might be coming in that are different fact intensive matters or something than the antitrust space or class case. So I think on a personal level, especially more in recent years, I've really found it to be important to be assessing what your, like, pool of cases looks like so that you can be doing your best work.
Khurram Naik:And you mentioned the importance of of of fresh ideas. And I think something that's interesting about about Sussman Godfrey is that so many people are homegrown. You're homegrown. You're one of the leaders of the firm. And so there's, you know, a handful of firms that have that approach.
Khurram Naik:And it seems to me that there's a trade off in firms that are that grow accretively and bring in new people because new people come in and can add new ideas at the cost of maybe a cohesive culture potentially or or alignment in values and and economics. And so what are the ways in which, know, given that assessment has you know, it it it is such a focus on homegrown talent, how do you institutionally you're talking about professionally how you incorporate new ideas and keep things fresh. As a firm, how do you keep things fresh and get new ideas into the firm?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I think that's really incumbent on the lawyers who are here to be thinking creatively, but I also think that is an element of firm culture to begin with, in part because we are, you know, historically have been very nimble about practice. We don't have very fixed practice areas. We don't have formal practice areas at all. And the firm, in its inception, was founded primarily to do plaintiffs' antitrust work and class work, in the nineteen eighties. And then there was a time where that was a more difficult road to mount.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so then the firm diversified and started looking at all these other different areas, exciting areas to practice in. And I think in part because of the way our business is structured, there's a lot of financial incentive for partners to be really thoughtful and creative about where is a new area to explore and to come up with. And if you can figure that out, the firm is gonna support you in it. It's it's sort of your oyster to do that. And I have partners that have frankly developed entire practices in areas that really were largely untouched.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I'm thinking especially in the class field, theories of law that maybe hadn't really been pursued and that, you know, they they have a big motivation to do that. And I think also because we do have some institutional clients, but unlike a lot of firms, we don't have a that's not our only aim is to have institutional clients. And so you may be somebody who your individual practice doesn't include a lot of institutional clients, and so you have to figure out where your work is coming from, your next work. And particularly on as plaintiff's counsel, a lot of your cases may be one off for a particular client. Their need is this one moment in which they have a very high profile dispute to bring, but they may not have ongoing litigation or ongoing litigation of the size that's worth us being involved in.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So you are having to figure out where to look for your next case or where to develop that next relationship. And so I think by structure that we have always been forced to be creative about how to think about work and also to be very aware, and Steve Sussman really impressed upon us to be thinking about where the trends are in the law and what types of litigation are active and not to get hung up on again, because we don't have these fixed structures of practice areas. If, there are moments where the antitrust law is waxed and waned as the right place for plaintiffs to be. We need to be paying attention to that and focusing where we put our resources. So I do I think it's ingrained already in the culture, again, I think both for business and economic reasons, but also because we were sort of trained and brought up that way.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so while we're not bringing in groups or lawyers by acquisition, we have our own demands to constantly be thinking about what are the new areas that are viable for litigation. And I think we have a good partnership for that. We have people who are really thoughtful and creative and willing to take appropriate risk to give it a shot in new areas of, the law. So I think when it's ingrained in your culture, you don't need to search outside for it, but you do need to be thinking all the time as an institution how to keep that going.
Khurram Naik:And then how do you think about, guess, as far as exchanging ideas goes, I guess I'll put a question this way. What do you think if there's one thing you think either plaintiff or defense side firms, primarily plaintiff, primarily defense side firms should be thinking about, that they should emulate Sussman in. There's one thing you think other firms should emulate Sussman, and what do you think that is?
Kalpana Srinivasan:We look and evaluate cases very carefully. And, obviously, we do so because a lot of times we are taking risk in those cases, whether it's contingent, whether it's some bonus upside. We we take we try to structure fee arrangements even in defense cases that might include some component of a success fee or that reflect the aims of the client. I think that more firms first should be doing that, should put some skin in the game. I think it makes their clients feel really good that their law firm has, an incentive to try to get the result they want, and it forces you to figure out what your client wants.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Because you might have a client that wants to to battle to the ends of the earth, and you might have a client that says, look. I really want this resolved in six months. And if I can get it resolved this way in six months on these terms, that's a win for me. And you need to know that. And part of this exercise of trying to be thoughtful and come up with all these bespoke fee arrangements is it forces you to figure that out early on with your client.
Kalpana Srinivasan:What matters to you? What is what is a win in your column? And so that's part one, trying to align yourself closely with your client's aims and come up with some fee structure that reflects that so they know you're trying to achieve what they what they're asking you to. And then I think the second piece of it is really learning then how to bet cases and think about those cases in a business sense, what you're investing in them to achieve the results, which we because, again, of our our contingent roots, we track all the time, and it really makes you view the cases. You understand the merits.
Kalpana Srinivasan:You analyze liability, but you're also thinking about damages. You're also thinking about how eventually this case could or could not be monetized. And I think that kind of folding in that business analysis into your legal analysis is important for you and for the client to understand what the ultimate path to recovery might be.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. Sounds like, a lot of alignment of incentives in a very beneficial way. And I really like this concept of sitting down thinking hard about, hey. What does success even look like? Because I think that's probably just something that a lot of people, maybe even clients, could take for granted that they haven't really sat down and thought that through.
Khurram Naik:So then I'll pose a question to you is what's what's a either plan Planet for Defense firm that you admire, and what's something that you would like to what's an idea you'd like to incorporate from them at your firm?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I I there are a couple. I you had Moez on Moez Kaba on your podcast recently, and so I'll I'll certainly give a shout out to Houston Hennigan. I what they're rolling from big trial to big trial and and on both sides, both defense and plaintiff, I think their agility in doing that, they're really doing it really well. Obviously, their trial results speak for themselves, but they're managing to do that without having to be a, you know, a massive law firm. They're very they've grown and they have a great size, but I think they're demonstrating that agility and ability to move from big case to big case, but to still do it really, really well at a very, very high level, obviously.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I really think that that is a very special skill and one that a lot of law firms don't have. They're either they're very big and they have people setting up every case, and then they have a few people who come in to try certain cases, or they're not really prepared to go to trial at all, and they're there to litigate and then potentially have somebody come and parachute in to try it. So I think what they're doing is great to see that there are firms that can have that as their model itself. And that's very cool, and I think that they're doing it exceptionally well.
Khurram Naik:On
Kalpana Srinivasan:the plaintiff side, there's so many firms out there that we work with as co counsel in various cases. And I think every time I work with different plaintiffs firms, I'm always interested in what their intake process is like, how they're evaluating cases, and I learn something kind of every time. We do that because they all have different ways of looking at and and figuring out how to approach a good case. And anything we can do to sharpen that skill is time well spent from for us to learn from others, and we pick up bits and pieces of ways they may do that. Or I've seen some firms that, have brought in nonlawyers maybe as their own internal economics expert or somebody who can do some expert type analysis for them internally pre litigation.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And that's an interesting, I think, way to dig in differently so that you're better understanding the risks and the issues in the case. So those are the kinds of things that I I look at, especially with the plaintiffs firms that we can learn from and do learn from in working with them.
Khurram Naik:Is the firm bigger than you expected to be when you first joined?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I wouldn't say so. I think the growth has been actually, if you look at it over I've been here almost twenty years, has been pretty steady growth. And it's our the firm has certainly grown from its roots, but we're forty plus years into the firm's history, and we are still about a 160 lawyers, partners, and associates. We I think because our of our structure of associates coming to the firm, working their way through the track, and then becoming partners, our partnership ranks have grown quite a bit in the past couple of years. But, I think that what we're learning is that it it's the growth is breeding abundance.
Kalpana Srinivasan:It's not, creating, some issue over limited resources because these new partners bring with them the ability to support these massive cases that we're taking on. And then, of course, some of them are bringing new work into the firm themselves. If you look at the way our revenue generation comes in, it's really, spread out across lawyers from different vintages, and we are a very non hierarchical institute. So if you have somebody come in and they're a first, second, third year partner, that doesn't matter. Their their revenue mat is treated equally as if it was my revenue or somebody who's been at the firm longer than me.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So I think there's the firm has certainly grown, but I think because of our structure, that growth has been, first, very natural and very organic, not with some mission to reach a certain target. And second, because of our the way our firm operates, it's it's at least in the past couple of years has proven out to be supporting itself and then some because we've had last year was our most profitable year at the firm ever. So I think that that's and that will continue to really be the path we're on, which is thoughtful organic growth. But I do think growth is obviously a natural part of what happens when you add people, associates who are gonna become partners. And I think measured appropriate growth is needed too because we are continuing to take on some very, very large matters that need support to to do them the way we wanna do them and and invest the right resources.
Khurram Naik:That that was my question is, is there anything different about litigating cases now? So are there I don't know if the right word is economies of scale, but is scale beneficial in some way and that you're able to do things that you couldn't do previously?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I I think so. And I also believe that some of the cases that the litigation market maybe twenty, thirty years ago, you could take on a massive class action with a certain number of people involving a certain number of hours. Some of that's changed because the litigations become more protracted, and there's more issues. There's more discovery. The volume of discovery is obviously grown with the advent of ediscovery.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And if we're in a plaintiff's case where we're up against a large corporate defendant, we know that just even on our obligations to meet our proof, we're gonna have a lot to do that is different than when you were maybe doing a contingent case in the nineteen eighties or nineties. So I do think the scale is different and needed and what you need to properly put together the case, and then, of course, handle whatever else comes your way from the other side has grown as well. And we we really don't view any case as being too big to take on, so we want to be prepared for any matter. And I think having the flexibility, and I mentioned before that there are some cases that come to us or some firms that do a very nice job litigating and working up a case, but for whatever reason, it's not the right fit for them to try the case. And so they come to us close to trial time, and we need to have the ability to have people ready to, parachute in if that opportunity arises where they can come in and try the case even if we didn't have it from the get go.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so you need people to do that and have people available for that.
Khurram Naik:And on this topic of firm administration, I should say that I asked a number of people who know you or admire you what they know or admire about you. And something that Paul Graywald said is he's really impressed with your ability to handle, litigate first fair trial really big cases and run this firm at the same time. He said that is a rare thing that, you know, some people are only doing one or the other best. And so it's really initially that you're doing both. So what's the secret?
Kalpana Srinivasan:The secret. Finding more space in the day, being organized about how you balance the different obligations and demands of the day. I do think actually being a very active practicing lawyer, litigator, being in trial, all of it, it helps me as a leader of a firm that does this the very thing that I'm out there doing too. Because part of what you're resolving, in management is often thinking about things like what is the future of our business, and being on the ground floor where I'm out there litigating and working with lawyers and being in the courtroom, I feel like I have a much better ability to think about those issues, think think them through with my partners than if I was solely administrating. And some of the issues that my partners might bring to me about how they resolve a conflict or something that they some area that they're trying to get into or an issue that they're having with an opposing counsel or a challenge in a case, I just feel like I'm much better equipped to deal with those because I understand what they're trying to accomplish because I'm out there doing the same thing.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I think on the practical side, I try to be very organized as much as I can about how my time is spent and to find those pockets where it's like, now I'm gonna focus on getting through some of the firm related work, and this is the time that I'm gonna go back to working on my case matters. I have a comanaging partner, so that is really vital, especially, if one of us is in trial, because that's really, I think, the time when you want your focus to be as singular as it can be and having somebody else to sort of focus on the firm issues during that time is very important. But I every every firm is different, but I do believe that I have a better ability to figure out and address firm issues and have the trust of my partners because I'm doing what they're doing. I'm out in the trenches. And when they come to me with an issue, I'm trying to problem solve for them because I know why it matters to them.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I know why it's important. And I think that is that is really helpful in our firm, as opposed to somebody who may may no longer be practicing and for whom those issues may not be so so palpable anymore.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. And then are there any benefit you you mentioned the benefits for administration from having a trial practice or any benefits to a trial practice for also administering?
Kalpana Srinivasan:For sure. And I absolutely the operational side of what I get to do is really fun and challenging on its own. It's different, and there are different people issues involved. And I think that you can import some of those lessons into even how you work run your trial team. You are, I think, in your leadership role or as a firm leader, I am trying to be a good ear for a very wide group of people, not just lawyers, but also staff and then who have different issues or sometimes want a different ear about things, and they have direct access to me, which is great.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I think, likewise, when you're working with a trial team to remind yourself that you're working with everybody on the team and you wanna be available to them as well. So I think some of those lessons, interpersonal skills that are so critical to management also have a very important role to play in building a successful trial team. My teams, I think, know how to work with me, know how I'm available, know how I work. I try to be really open about that, and I think that the management side has trained me to do that even better on my litigation side. I put together a little list of tips or things about working with me that I think the younger lawyers on the team should know so that they can understand and it can be more transparent to them.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Like, I am more likely to read briefs early in the morning than late at night. So if that helps you in your planning, that's just a heads up about how I work, or I do tend to read a lot of things on Saturday morning. So if you're trying to figure out how to plan your own life, you can learn a little bit about how I work, and hopefully that can be helpful to you. And I worked with a young lawyer who said, I know. Like, I'm not I'm not gonna rush to get something to you at nine or ten or eleven at night unless it's due the next day because I know that I'm much better off trying to get it to where it needs to be and get it to you early in the morning.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So I think just as a manager tries to give on the management side tries to get clarity to where they're coming from, I think I've tried to do that increasingly with my teams, my trial teams, and just so they know what I'm thinking, and it shouldn't be mysterious for them. Obviously, they're free to ask me anytime, but to the extent it helps them in their planning or in their process.
Khurram Naik:I'm sure you had some expectations of what the role would be to comanage before you entered the role. What are the now you've been in the role for some time. What surprised you about being in the role?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I part of what you're doing is as a leader, you still are a not just a business leader or a leader in management, but you are the face of the firm. And you are also a leader in some of the softer senses of the word that are not always about decision making, but people often utilize you, me, as a sounding board for ideas or to to come to me or come to me and my comanaging partner and just get our feeling about something they're thinking about or get our feedback. They're not these aren't issues that are strictly things that we have to decide. But I think to some aspect, you are also more a leader, and you are the person that people want to get feedback from, or they wanna make sure you're on board with something that they're considering even before they, venture ahead and put it together or, put it before the executive committee. And, I think some of that is really a testament to our institution, how close knit it remains even as we've grown, that we still have that among partners.
Kalpana Srinivasan:They come to the managing partners and say, oh, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? And you know? Or I'd like to pick your brain about this idea that I had, or I'd like to get your views on how to deal with this situation. Again, some of it is what is the firm policy on it?
Kalpana Srinivasan:That that's a more technical leadership aspect of it, but I do think a lot of it is still wanting to have a resource that is your leadership, your guidance for how you should be proceeding. And I probably didn't appreciate how much of that still is part of the culture of the firm, but, partners want to know that they're gonna do something that has the support or the has been thought through or has endorsement of the leadership of the firm.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. You've underscored you know, it sounds like Steve Sussman, you know, emphasized judgment. So he emphasized, hey. You know, antitrust goes through different phases of of enforcements. And so pay attention to that.
Khurram Naik:Think about where trends are going. And so be forward thinking the firm, and then likewise, you know, thinking about at plaintiff's lawyers, think, particularly, think about new theories to litigate litigate cases under. And so there's necessarily this very forward thinking aspect to the firm. But I'm struck with, you know, a lot of your references to the firm are use the word history a lot or, you know, you refer to Steve Sussman in in in his approaches. So I find an interesting balance maybe between having an almost reverential approach to its its its history with this growth.
Khurram Naik:How how do you think about those two? I think there's an interesting connection between those two.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I do. And I think that it's allowed the growth and the future planning to be tethered to something, as opposed to, okay. We now have a 100 partners close to it, and they're just off all on their own doing whatever they want and whatever is, lucrative for them, which could be one world you end up in when a firm grows. But we still have people a partnership that's very, very rooted and committed to one another, and that has remained even though we are the size of our partnership today. And I really do think that is really because of the history of the firm and the way that it grew up and the way a lot of these partners grew up together in a firm that was developing and growing.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I see a big part of my role in leadership having come into this role after the founding partners are no longer in leadership and another long standing managing partner had has since stepped down. But, this is part of a transition to the the next future wave of of lawyers and leadership at the firm. And I think it's really critical that even when you're going into that future that you have some grounding in the past because otherwise, you again, you could have people that are out there trying to figure out what to do for themselves without any sense of commitment to the firm itself, and I we don't have that. So I credit that to having a very strong history and a very strong identity as to who we are as a firm. And you'd be amazed our partnership is very active and engaged in so many aspects of the firm.
Kalpana Srinivasan:We don't being we don't have full time administrative partners as you noted, but we have so many people who are very giving of their time. And I think what we're doing too is sort of figuring out how to channel that, pass down some of the important lessons that we learned in the firm's history, and then also having to how to tweak those as we grow as an institution and then things become more dynamic. So kind of taking the grounding that we have and then slowly morphing them or adapting them to the changes. But so many of our principles about how we do things are still rooted in what Steve and the firm founders created, including our very rigorous process for looking at and evaluating cases and analyzing them and a lot of the, transparent aspects and culture of the firm. Those are things that are were part of the original vision of the firm.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so I think we try really hard to hold on to that even as we grow and then figure out how it needs to be adapted as you change in in appropriate ways.
Khurram Naik:And, you know, you've mentioned you know, in another conversation, you mentioned that something that Steve Sussman well, just a little trial approach technique that he would talk about is, let's say, it comes to depositions, not being you know, not holding the number of hours you have as as some sort of goal. Like, hey. I have to hit x number of hours, seven hours, whatever it is for for how much time you have. Why not one hour? Why why not no hours?
Khurram Naik:You know? Why don't we just cross a a trial? And I'm curious to hear about what are what do you think is is there one or two things that, you know, from Steve Sussman or other people that you train with that have made the biggest impact on you? And I'll share in my case. I externed for in law school, I externed for the then chief judge of the Northern District Of Illinois, Jim Holderman.
Khurram Naik:And he was, you know, before being on the he was on bench at a young age, but before that, he was a trial worker. Was in The USA, and he loved trial work. And so something he was a big proponent of and always point out the advocates that did a good job of this and the ones that had an option to do it was he was a big believer that, you know, even on routine status hearing whatever, you're always there's always some option to advocate for your client skillfully without overstepping anything. But there's always some way to subtly at least advocate for your client. And that just that little approach, I think, has permeated my my career since then.
Khurram Naik:And even just now as a recruiter, you know, if I'm having some sort of communication or or just exchange with with a recruiting team at a firm, I always find some way to advocate for my client or advocate for the ways in which this this could be a fit. So, it it's a simple but powerful advice that's that's just it'll stay with me. What about for you? Is there is there one or two things that you've learned from from from getting tramped, the firm that I've I've stayed with you?
Kalpana Srinivasan:A few things. And one, I I said this, I think, a week or two ago at the ABA conference when we were talking about trying monopolization cases, and it's one of Steve's favorite quotes, which is, there's no such thing as a bad witness, only a badly prepared witness, because he really, really instilled in the firm and in the training how to prepare a witness for deposition or for trial and had a very skillful way of thinking about how you do that that was not about just inundating with a man with a bunch of documents with their name on it or leaving them to their fend for themselves or figure it out, really, really prepping them, getting them to understand what their role is, what they're there to accomplish, if at all, depending on whether you're in a deposition or you're in trial, how to get them to sound confident and comfortable in what they're talking about, how to do prep sessions that are meaningful, give them useful feedback, and really so much of that. And and the other piece of it is that he really had used to talk about how when you're actually in the moment, you're in a deposition, there's that if you're defending a witness, your work is should already be done.
Kalpana Srinivasan:You have prepped that person so well that, sure, you can lodge your objections, but but you're not there to protect them from questions. They're ready for the questions. And I always think about that because especially for trial, really having kind of developed my own method for prepping witnesses that is derivative of that idea and working backwards with what you need to get the witness comfortable with themselves or their testimony, understanding their role, what they're there to accomplish at a very conceptual level, and then drilling down into the specifics. A lot of that I developed with this simple concept in mind, which is that you were it is on you to get that person ready. You need to understand that if they're a critical witness to this case, you need to spend a lot of time with them.
Kalpana Srinivasan:It is not something that you can just do, you know, with a day of prep beforehand, especially for your critical trial witnesses. Like, you need to know those people. You need to know how they think. You need to know how they operate. You need to know what their weaknesses are, not just as a witness, but as a person.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I've had some cases where I really knowing there might be a witness who needed a lot of attention like that, just learn how important it was to start that process early of getting to know and understand them on a deep level so that when you're prepping them, you know how they learn. You know how just, for example, there are some witnesses that are really not great, auditory learners. You can sit there and tell them everything or talk them through things, and then they're just not going to process it. You need to be in a room with them. You need to be writing things on a whiteboard with them because they need to see it.
Kalpana Srinivasan:But how would you know what type of learner they are if you haven't already spent the time getting to know them in that way? So there's all I think taking that simple concept and really backing it out helped me to really understand the mechanics of trying to figure somebody out, figure somebody out who's your witness in a way that you can be useful to them to figure out how to prep them. And that requires more than just knowing what they're there to testify about. It really requires knowing them. So that's one example.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And then I think the other and it sounds basic, but I just have this this memory of Steve in a trial not really too long before his passing, just being in a room with boxes two boxes of the hottest documents in the case, just sitting down and going through them one by one. And he was a big believer and proponent in having this very well curated evergreen list of hot documents, which we keep in our cases from day one. We have hot docs, and then we refine them, and we add to them, and we remove documents from them so that at any point in a case, we have a reference set of documents that really encapsulate and hit the heart some of the most important issues in the case along with a chronology of events. And you need to have those paid attention to throughout the course of the case so that when you need them, they are in good condition. And certainly by the time you get to trial that you know those documents, you can come in and sit down with a couple of boxes of documents that are the hottest, hottest ones in the case that really are gonna tell the story for the jury.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Because as a practical matter, you can put those x thousand documents on your exhibit list, but your case is likely gonna come down to some universe, and you wanna make sure that you know that universe backwards and forwards. And I have a distinct memory of seeing him just on his own in a conference room going through those hot documents by himself, again, prepping for something, and there's just no substitute for it. You can't shortchange it.
Khurram Naik:What are ways in which your approach to trial differs from past assessment trial tried cases?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I I think Steve was very collaborative in trials and was kind of instilled this idea that everybody gets a role at trial. I think that's we still maintain that philosophy today with that great opportunity and great responsibility can sometimes, I imagine, especially for our younger lawyers and having been one myself, comes some stress around that. You're putting on a note or examining an important witness in trial, and you've never done that before. And I think I've tried to make sure that we are building in more steps along the way in the process so that when that time comes, that younger lawyer is equipped to take that on, and we feel comfortable, they feel comfortable, we've given them the resources they need to succeed in it. It's great to have the opportunity, but we need to make sure they can get what they need to, be able to do it well.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so I think building in a little bit more of that on the front end, and that's on kind of on the team side, to make sure that, you know, there's a lot of comfort on their end. So I think, again, that idea that everybody on the team does something, definitely a Steve concept. And now that our cases and our teams might be a little bit bigger and our cases may be big and demanding, so we just need to make sure everybody's comfortable with that opportunity too.
Khurram Naik:Do you have a favorite phase of a case?
Kalpana Srinivasan:That phase right before trial when you're just narrowing everything down is a really amazing part of it and where you're really forced to crystallize the ideas, because, and obviously, the slog of discovery is challenging. I think in our current civil litigation environment, it there are days where you just there can be a lot of unnecessary fighting, which is something we were are strongly discouraged from doing, but you can't control all of that in discovery disputes. But I think that moment when you're really forced to answer the simple question of what is this case about in in a very succinct way and which you need to do to be able to open or to make sure that you have hit the high points or you can string together the best testimony and documents. So I think that that kind of moment close to the trial when you're working through that and you're trying to figure out how you whittle it down to that is, for me, my favorite time.
Khurram Naik:And do you have a fair part of trial?
Kalpana Srinivasan:For me, opening is my favorite. And closing's fun too in part because there's a lot of things that you're doing based on what happened at trial, and so you need to be spontaneous and quick on your feet about it. But I think opening be in part because you're setting the tenor for the trial and the relationship with the jury and the mood in the room can often be dictated by how the opening begins. It's not obviously, it's none of its evidence, and it's, early in the case. And so it may not be what impacts solely the juror's view of the case so much as the mood that it sets.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Are the jurors to be upset for your client? Are they wanting to vindicate your client? Are they sympathizing with your client? Are they here to learn? Are they here to be emotionally involved?
Kalpana Srinivasan:What what is the moment and the mood that you're trying to set? And I think thinking through those and setting figuring out how to do that, how to communicate that is really, for me, the the most I think a part of the case that I really, really enjoy.
Khurram Naik:It's maybe the most creative or artistic part of the case. It's it's not really about, as you say, about the evidence necessarily as such. But, yeah, I think that's a very, there's there's nothing else like that in litigation. Everything else is, like, let's say, discovery disputes. It's so factual.
Khurram Naik:Here's this rule or whatever. It's just so it's just like a complete such an unusual part of of litigation.
Kalpana Srinivasan:It allows you to really be in control of the narrative, and to figure out how you wanna tell that narrative, not just what it is and what you want the narrative to evoke, which is I think the most interesting part because you know what the story is of your of the client on either side. But what is the feeling that you want the jury to walk away with having heard that narrative? Is it indignation? Is it that they understand the dispute? Is it just two businesses fighting over nothing?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Like, well, you want them to have a feeling that's gonna frame your view of the case. And I think that that's part of the as you say, it's creative, and there's an aspect to how you you just get a mood out that can can then be the the platform for the rest of the evidence coming in.
Khurram Naik:What's a moment where you were surprised? Of course, trials always involve or so often involve surprises. What's a time you're really surprised with something at trial, then how did you handle it?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I have been in trials where the witness has recanted prior testimony. And I don't mean like, oh, I said that at my depot, but things change or some, you know, some soft peddling of a prior answer. I mean, full blown, yes, I said that under oath. That was wrong. That didn't happen.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I think sometimes you because you're not expecting that in that way, especially in civil trials to have somebody just full blown unwind something they said, that you almost have to remind yourself, take a moment and let it sink in for you, for everybody around you. Because if you want to be sure, certainly, that the fact finder appreciates what a big deal it is that this has just happened. And you can almost again, you're used to trying to get through your questions and the time and but sometimes it's just taking that moment, and that's often the most powerful thing. Your the rest of your questions may not really have any value at all after that. Now that you've had somebody basically admit that their testimony is not trustworthy.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So I think there are moments like that where there are as much as there's civil litigation is filled with prep and people have been deposed and you they kinda know what their script's gonna be and this and that, there are still moments of actual surprise and unexpected events and developments. And I think it's so important to be present enough to be able to respond to that or not respond, and give everybody the moment to appreciate that. But it's just it's, it's being that attuned to what is happening right in that moment.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. And was the time which you had there was something that was adverse to you or challenging for you that you had a role with and and deal with, and how'd you deal with that?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I've had a situation where, I've had some, I would say, an expert who maybe did not have a lot of testifying experience, was a seasoned industry expert, very well accomplished in their field, and just not used to testifying. And when faced with questioning and a proceeding, and suddenly the lights are on and they're in the center of the room and the attention is on them, really have struggle with holding their opinions and that they've they've felt very passionately about based on their own independent industry knowledge. But being in the litigation spotlight is a different thing. And, again, you that is why the prep is so critical. But I think for people, especially on the expert side who don't have a lot of litigation testifying experience, it really can be a little bit of a shock to the system to be in that moment.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I've had experts who really struggled to hold on to their opinions even though they believed them because they were getting a little bit confused in the moment or they weren't used to the the manner in which they were being questioned and but really most of all being observed by a judge or a jury or an arbitrator, and suddenly they've kind of lost themselves a little bit. And I think that in those moments, you have to be prepared to bring them back to basic principles, basic concepts, why are they there, and help to reground them. And, again, going back to something I mentioned, that's where knowing them as a person
Khurram Naik:Mhmm.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Is really can be even for an expert, can be really, really valuable because maybe you come back to some question on a redirect that's an anecdote or an area that they it's relatable to them and then can just kind of bring it down a little bit and help them reframe and regroup so that they can block out a little bit maybe some of the stress they feel being in that space and refocus on their opinions. Because I think that look. Any it can happen to any witness getting a little bit freaked out being in under the microscope, even the very, very best prepped ones, but I think you need to know enough how to bring them back around.
Khurram Naik:Going back to I guess something I I'm thinking about is how much I think you more than I think other trial lawyers I spoke with or or had on here are really thinking about how people are different and how how an individual needs to be adapted to. And I I I think you've also thought that of yourself. You've also you know, in giving some context for how you work to your team, you're thinking about you and how you're different than other people. So I think you're I think it seems to me you're very attuned to individuality. I think that seems to be a hallmark of your reasoning and thinking about how individuals work together.
Khurram Naik:You know, even when I'm asking about how you are work a lot of times you're talking institutionally about a firm, but then the lens which you're you're breaking it down is often the individual. You say, well, here's the ways in which I'm a sounding board for a group of individuals or in, you know, the skill set I'm learning as an operator has helped me work with a team of individuals and and how we cohere. So I think it's a a really interesting contribution that you have as a lawyer. And I wonder if you've noticed that in yourself.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I probably am more self aware of it now than I was as a younger lawyer, but I do I think, first of all, it's my nature to be a people oriented person. So I tend to think of things from the ground up rather than the top down. When I was a journalist or when I was a reporter is one of the things I loved. I loved talking to people and then figuring out the story by starting at the bottom rather than, okay. We know this policy initiative was implemented.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Let's that's gonna be there. We're gonna work up to that, but how did it affect people? Let's start there. So I think that's just a way of of how I process things anyway. But I also think it's what's given me a lot of freedom and courage or whatever the right word is there to do things that and to not self select out of things that you may be different from the people in the room, or you may have a different way of approaching the issue, but not to to talk yourself out of it before you've even started.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I do think the individual accepting that there are individual aspects to yourself, to those around you, that we are individuals that are going to be different has been very important for me in my life to feel comfort that I'm not I'm gonna do things in a way that feels comfortable to me, and there may be things that I look at and I say, I don't know if I'm gonna ever be able to do that. I'm not gonna be able to do it that way and that that's okay. And that's appropriate, and it's fine, and it's great. It's great for our profession too. So I I think in that way, I've come to recognize it more over time as well.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And even something like how you operate as a trial lawyer, there are things that some of my colleagues or co counsel do beautifully in the courtroom that are not they don't sit well on me, and so I don't do that. And getting more comfortable with the way you approach what you do and that it may be different and and sort of sitting into that has been very important for me. But I think as it for the institution, I I do kind of look at things from the ground up. And I do think it's important to understand things at a person level, even if ultimately some of the problems you're trying to solve are at the institution level or at a higher level.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. I I think this might, foreshadow how you approach, business development because I think that's another dimension. We talked about how you allocate time between for administration and trial work, but I think that's a dimension I think would be interesting to hear on a, say, monthly or weekly time horizon. I guess, how do you with maybe just starting a really big picture, do you seem to be professionally these three big buckets. Maybe there's other buckets, that you can add to this.
Khurram Naik:But on, say, a weekly or monthly time horizon, how do you allocate of course, things come up on a daily basis and change your schedule, of course. But to the it sounds like you have a sense of your schedule. Say, hey. All things considered, I prefer reading briefs in the morning or especially Saturday mornings. How do you structure your time across these three buckets on a weekly or monthly time horizon?
Kalpana Srinivasan:And it's it's changed on the business development front over time, so I would say that also, especially for some of the younger lawyers that are out there because you're how you approach business development changes when you're starting out, I think. But I really like to do what could be considered business development or networking activities that also involve things that I'm interested in. And I find that I gravitate towards those, and I like doing them. And then I also get the benefit of meeting people and networking and all of that. What I find to be not as comfortable for me are very forced business development situations that are trying to broker meetings or trying to have a lunch with somebody or trying to have a dinner with somebody I don't know, like a toll call meal.
Kalpana Srinivasan:For me, not that I haven't done it, but it's not my go to business development strategy. I just I much prefer to do something first, I think, where people have an opportunity to see a little bit about me rather than hear about me. I I do speak a fair bit at conferences and on panels, and I enjoy doing that. I get benefit out of it. I learn every time I do a panel both from the other people on the panel and the subject matter.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So I really like that. But also the it gives an opportunity for others who are there, whether they be counsel who might be referring you cases or in house lawyers to actually see you doing something, to speak about an area that you're working in or hear about your practice and to see you in action in a sense even though you're not up there trying a case rather than just meeting them and you giving them your, quote, unquote, elevator pitch, which I is not I don't find enjoyable. And I don't for me, at least, I don't find that productive. So I'd rather them see something about me in my element. Again, not necessarily in the courtroom, although I've gotten a lot of work from people who have been my co counsel or opposing counsel who have been with me in cases.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So I would say that those kinds of opportunities are where I would probably prioritize my business development time. Something like a panel or a meeting where I have, an ability to meet people, but through the mechanism of them having seen or heard something I did, which provides kind of a natural segue to having a conversation with them. And then I have historically been involved in various organizations and on boards. Again, things that I just really was interested in or felt were important to me, including various iterations of work on the South Asian bar locally and nationally. And now I I don't have any official role there, so I just like to come see the amazing legions of new young South Asian lawyers, which fills me with great joy.
Kalpana Srinivasan:But those are things that are fun for me to do anyway. If I go to a conference like that, I'm mostly there to catch up with old friends. It has the added benefit that people get to know you and get to know what your practice is and very well may also be referring you cases along the way. So I think that I found the most productive business development to be something that is ancillary to doing something that I enjoy or that is also a learning opportunity and not just out there doing whole networking for its own sake, which I I think can be daunting for a lot of people and feel unnatural. And there are some people who love it and excel at it, but I think for me, having it be a component of something else feels much more my speed.
Khurram Naik:And then how do you think about and I think a lot of what you talked about is is so interesting about, you know, your potential clients or or peers seeing you in action, and your that's it's most like what it'd be like to hire you is is you'd be in action in some form. So I really like that concept. Is there some way you think about how to allocate how much time to allocate to business development on a monthly time horizon? I mean, panels aren't exactly something you can schedule necessarily, but, like, how do you generally think about how much energy and time to to dedicate to it?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Well, I would reframe a little bit. For me, business development includes, I I I would say, vetting potential cases because I spend a big chunk of time doing that. Because that's our lifeblood is looking at new matters, and, we get contacted. And I get contacted all the time about potential cases, and you also wanna give people firm guidance. If you're not interested in something, you don't wanna keep them hanging.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And if you are, you need time to due diligence on it if you're especially if we're looking to share risks. So I I would kind of keep that in the rubric of business development today because today, I do get a lot of inquiries from people who are just reaching out to me directly or because they read something I worked on. And so they wanna meet and talk about a potential matter they have. And those that kind of area, the vetting and the the intake work, I would say is a pretty substantial chunk of my time because a lot of times there's time sensitivity associated with that. Somebody has a case they wanna bring or they're about to bring.
Kalpana Srinivasan:They're looking to hire a new council or hire counsel very quickly, and they may want you to put together materials, or they may be looking to us to give them an answer on whether we would be willing to do it on a contingency or on a risk basis. So I would in a given week, it could be a quarter of my time is looking at potential new matters and and or doing diligence on cases that we're looking to bring in quarter to a third, maybe more in a in a given time frame. So I think that's very actively and especially because of the nature of our practice, that's all the time. And I consider that kind of under the umbrella of business development now. When I was a younger lawyer, and that that's probably why I would draw the distinction, I think you have to be more intentional about how you do that and how you devote the time for that.
Kalpana Srinivasan:If you're not always just getting calls to look at potential cases, as you say, it may not be enough to do a panel here and there. So how do you deepen your involvement? And I think for me, I would pick something where I could be like, if I was on a board, is there a task force or project that I could be involved in that allowed me to really work with people a little bit more closely? So sometimes it's not always expanding the scope. It's about deepening the contacts that you have and the relationships you have.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And for young lawyers who have co clerks and law school classmates that you already have relationships with, sometimes you forget. Going and spending time with them, people you know and you would like to see anyway, and hearing about their practice or doing spending some time with them is time extremely well spent. And that I think is something that's very important to think about because I think there's always a lot of press about expanding your network, expanding it kind of horizontally. But a lot of times you have those contacts, and you you need to vertically drill them, make them closer. You have young lawyers maybe on cases where they had an okay relationship with their opposing counsel in a past case.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Those are great opportunities for referrals and business development to reach out to somebody you were on the other side of and to get to know them or a co counsel. Again, not just even when the case is over. And I think that there's a lot of missed opportunity there to take the relationships that you already have and to really drill down on them. And I think that that's less daunting than to say, oh, I should, like, go walk into some big ABA meeting and shake a thousand hands. That's far less productive.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so I would say, I think I was more focused on those kinds of depth, how to build the relationships I had when I was a younger lawyer and that as a form of business development.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. You know, on the topic of a network, I think, I I certainly am prone of going deeper. And then also, I think there is a benefit to going broader. And and say on the topic of panels, I think a benefit of those is I think what's underrated when it comes to networking is things at scale. And so I think a lot of lawyers lawyers don't think enough about the Internet is this thing that allows you to create scale.
Khurram Naik:And intimacy is very important. Those two things go hand in hand. But I found, for instance, that, you know, I have a podcast, and I have a newsletter for South Asian lawyers, and that allows me to op and I post on LinkedIn, these three different things. And and that allows me to operate at scale so that I'm I'm and going back to something we talked earlier about serendipity and put yourself position to benefit from it. I do these things at scale so that when I have opportunities to be at a conference or to have you know, I'm, you know, gonna be, you know, in Houston in a couple weeks for the Southeastern Bar Association gala.
Khurram Naik:So for things like that, I'm putting putting myself in a position where I can make the most out of in person quality time. It's this kind of barbell, you know, very broad one end and very deep on the other. And, you know, on that spectrum, the panels is a is a great spot to be in. I think lots of spots on the spectrum are very good. And what strikes me with the panels is that you do all you're also able to operate at scale.
Khurram Naik:There's a group of people that are gonna be there. But so I I am a big proponent of of of doing something at scale to the extent possible, and that kind of, I think, a running theme in what I share. You know, I I share ideas around networking for other lawyers. And so that's kinda like the that's my hammer. Right?
Khurram Naik:Everything I see is a nail, and that's my hammer. Do you have a hammer? Is there or is there something for yourself professionally that you think pervades? I I think, you know, like, my career can be facilitated by as a recruiter, I couldn't operate the way that I do without this network that I have. And so, this has just pervaded my professional life.
Khurram Naik:Is there something the same way in your career where you just feel like this is the running theme about this is the asset that I'm I'm compounding in my career, and maybe others should be thinking about it too, but certainly it works for you. What would you say that is?
Kalpana Srinivasan:And you mean more as, like, a strategy for career development as opposed to internal development of your of yourself? I I think that if you can, for example, have the opportunity, like you say, for a platform to be on a podcast, to write articles, the all of those are great things. Some lawyers have the opportunity to even be in trials where the trial or they're doing an argument that's recorded. And, again, that kind of goes to this very simple mantra of, like, show, don't tell. If you can show somebody something, it is really immensely valuable, because I think that it says so much without you having to say it in a way that somebody says, okay.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Well, thanks. I'm glad you told me you're great. How do I know? And so I think those kinds of platforms for me, again, you know, that you may have lawyers who really have gotten to see you, and a lot of my cases do come from referring lawyers. But is there a way that you can showcase that even more to your clients?
Kalpana Srinivasan:Whether, again, it'd be an argument that they can come sit in on or that you can that you have a recording of some appellate argument you divs, a lot of people do nowadays from their appellate arguments, and even inviting potential clients to come see you in a hearing. Or one of the benefits of having these Zoom hearings is that you can have a much bigger audience than you did before. But I think it sounds so simple and straightforward, but sometimes we're spend a lot of time talking around the thing, and we are the thing. And how can you give your clients and potential referring lawyers more opportunities to see you? Because you are the thing.
Kalpana Srinivasan:You you are the thing that is that you're trying to explain and talk about and market. And sometimes the the best way to do that is just to give them more access to you doing what you do.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. I love that. Okay. So I guess final question or two questions maybe is on, say, a year time horizon or so, what are you most excited about with your career?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I'm very excited about, I would say, the last couple years that having a different breadth to the kinds of cases, that are high profile, very bet the company type cases, but of a wide variety and I think on both sides of the v. And it's been really both fun and challenging, but I think last year was that kind of year for me. I had a very, very significant plaintiff side trade secret breach of confidential information case, and then I ended up defending an $11,000,000,000 merger from government challenge. And I really felt like the opportunity to do these different types of matters on both sides was very invigorating. And I would like to continue to have that flexibility to come in and to handle these matters that often require obviously great litigators to get them to the finish line, but also some strategic considerations about what the party is trying to achieve, what your client wants the outcome to be, and perhaps utilizing some of my skills to get there that are beyond litigation, but are also about thinking about strategy and how to interface with different people in different aspects of the broader litigation realm, whether it's dealing with your fact finder or dealing with the government to negotiate a consent order.
Kalpana Srinivasan:I think that all of that requires not just, again, a very, very solid understanding of the litigation dynamic because that's what gives you the ability to figure those issues out, but also to think creatively about how to get to a solution that is going to be viewed as as something positive for your client, as a win. And I think that challenge for me is what I I really enjoy and and is already built into a lot of the cases that I handle, whether you're trying to settle them or deal with some complex structural issue you're trying to figure out for your client. But I think increasingly, those are the kinds of matters, where I feel like they're tapping into something that I can offer that's different.
Khurram Naik:And then what is something that you're doing that is a stretch for yourself and kinda out out of your comfort zone and that's, something that you are excited about but a little daunted by?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I would say more defense side work is not don't I've done plenty of it over the course of my career, and I've tried defense cases. But I think that it's good to not be pigeonholed as any one thing. And although I am and do I identify my practice as primarily being on the plaintiff side, I think it's important to be viewed first and foremost, as somebody who handles significant matters and complex issues and tries to get them solved, whatever side that's on. And so I do think getting the opportunity to do more complex defense work is something that I would like to do and be thought of because I do think that's both frankly, it makes you a better lawyer to do both at a very high level. But I also think it's more generally where I view my career at now, which is coming in and helping clients in their thorny issues, whatever those may be, whether it's somebody stealing their IP or defending against claims that a company feels aren't right or they need to mitigate their risk on.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And so I I think that that's in a place where I'd like to spend time trying to make sure that I am finding those really interesting challenging cases on the other side of the v two.
Khurram Naik:I was gonna make my last question, but you just said something that's so interesting. So you said, you know, hey. It's it's good for me to take all these offense cases too. And I think a reaction someone could have to that is why? You know, why couldn't you just focus on plaintiffs?
Khurram Naik:Why can't you be why can't everyone think of Kalapana as synonymous with plaintiff cases? And so that just you're the obvious go to person that you're talking about the benefit of of marketing by by showing what you can do. It's not just showing what you can do. It just it's just it's a no brainer for me to to call Kalapana because she's so good at at plaintiff's cases. Whereas if I have to also think about for defense cases, it's just less obvious.
Khurram Naik:But you framed it as it was just it's inherently good for you to get more rounded as a lawyer if if for no other reason. Let's I'm conceding what you're saying is potentially let's say there's a trade off between being the go to person for plaintiff cases and the obvious choice there and potentially, like, I don't know if she's the obvious person for for this kind of case, but it'd be worth it to you because you feel like you'd be more skilled lawyer and you'd inherently enjoy your work more. Did I get that right?
Kalpana Srinivasan:It's a combination of things. I think, certainly, it's like training any tool. If you train the tool the same way every time, that's good. That tool is gonna be sharp. If you then force the tool to be trained in a different way, it's gonna be even more agile and and and have flexibility, learn to respond to different things.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I really believe that that's part of what you're doing at a certain level, which is you can understand how to put together the plaintiff's case and really excel at it, and you should. And you should be very good at learning something on a deep level. But I think that the challenge of being able to see the other perspective is is also beneficial to both sides. You it makes you a better plaintiff's lawyer to know what the defendant's gonna do. And I frankly think that when I have been in big significant defense matters, I think the lawyers on the other side, hope, believe that I'm credible about what I say because I know what they're doing, and I know where their weaknesses are very clearly because I've been there too.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm.
Kalpana Srinivasan:So I think it's certainly about training and and sharpening that skill set. And I think for me, on a personal level, it's just about being able to utilize some of these skills that traverse subject matter. They traverse sides of the v. They traverse clients, and that it's really about strategy and solution finding. And the more opportunities you have to do that, I think for me, when you ask about what I'm looking to do in the next couple of years in my career, that's that's the part that's really exciting for me.
Khurram Naik:I think, you know, we talked about this before, but so when I was a patent litigator, I focused on pharmaceutical patent litigation, and then so much of that was on the generic side. I I some brand work, but so much generic side. So one side of the v, and then also this kind of work is, you know, there's you know, district court litigation has its rules, and there's patent litigation which has its rules, and then there's Hatch Wass litigation, which has its own rules. And so it's very, very regimented. There's minimal motion practice.
Khurram Naik:And so it's it's really nice in that things are very structured, and and there's a lot of clarity about what the path is ahead at the cost of, like you say, this the versatility of this tool of being a litigator and okay. It's all bench trials. I'm not doing jury trials. It's all one side of v. It's not the other.
Khurram Naik:There's no motion practice. And, you know, as a junior litigator, I really value that. I recognize the trade off of all the things that I wasn't getting, but it was nice. You know, when I was new to the field, it was nice to feel like, yeah, I can get some mastery early on on this. But then as I kinda progressed, I realized the the the cost that was mounting for me of of only having this one kind of experience.
Khurram Naik:And, you know, something that you and I talked about before is, you know, I I think the part of patent litigation that just I I just really did not enjoy was expert work. Yeah. I just didn't enjoy that. I would dread working on expert report and, you know, all the paragraph sites and all this kind of stuff. It's just, you know, it was it was just not something that I enjoyed.
Khurram Naik:And, you know, I felt a lot of pressure to push through on that, and and but but then I realized, you know, that that's you just you won't really progress when you do that. Now as a legal recruiter, when there are challenging circumstances, I noticed that I'm excited about a challenge. If there's a difficult, you know, item to be negotiated, difficult ask to make, I'm excited to do that for for law firms, for candidates. And to me, I'm noticing that's such a a measure of your satisfaction with your work. And so I I guess I think there's a lot of lawyers who just aren't sure of the path they're on, and I'm finding it to be a useful tool for helping lawyers figure out what it is they really like to do.
Khurram Naik:And it's something that ties to something you were saying really early on is is understanding your unique set of circumstances, what makes you you. Actually, I think this might have been before I hit record. So I guess, like, what guidance do you have for for lawyers for because I I think this is such a persistent thing in our field is not knowing what you think you really should be doing. Took me some tinkering for sure. And it sounds like, you know, you were also mentioning the benefit of of trying on different roles and putting yourself in different circumstances so you can test and find out exactly what it is.
Khurram Naik:But, yep, it's such a pervasive thing in our field. I think a lot of lawyers feel this pressure to go down some some well trod path. How do you I guess, maybe this will be the final parting thoughts is how do you help lawyers think about what their true contribution is and and and where they should be, you know, directing themselves so that they're really hitting resonance?
Kalpana Srinivasan:I would say first, the tinkering, the journey, let's not undervalue that as a as a person, as what is the journey you are on in your life. And I think if you already knew the answers to everything, including what your ultimate calling is, we'd it would be a we'd short circuit a lot of our growing pains and a lot of our personal growth along the way. But I think that it's absolutely the case that a lot of people come into the legal profession feeling like I should have all the answers. I should know the path that I'm on. And if I don't, if the path doesn't look familiar to me or I don't think I'm gonna be able to follow the footsteps of everybody I see in that path or I'm not gonna, I don't look like people who are at the top echelons of this path wherever it leads, then I should go ahead and get off there right now.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And I see that a lot. I think we see it a lot statistically in terms of seeing lawyers who fall out of the profession, especially among certain groups, underrepresented groups, after being in the practice for five or six years. So I think it's really important to embrace that it is a journey to get to where you want professionally and to feel fulfilled, and there can be a lot of different dimensions to it. Like, is there a subject matter that you're interested in or turns out that you're not? Or maybe you are, and over time you decide you wanna do something else.
Kalpana Srinivasan:That's natural. That's not somebody making bad choices. It's recognizing that part of their fulfillment lies in having an understanding of different things or doing something new to keep them interested and to be willing to take some steps to explore. And as you mentioned, you might find some parts of the law to be laborious or demanding, and that may be true to some degree in whatever you do. But you should be looking, and you should be able to identify things that give you some sense of fulfillment at all parts of your career, whether it's a big thing or a small thing.
Kalpana Srinivasan:And if you can't, that's when you need to be tweaking and redefining the work that you're doing. The other thing is I think freeing yourself a little bit from the idea that if you don't, if you're not going to fit into a particular mold, you're not cut out for the profession or you're cut out for that particular path. Because I think that it's not, the path is not so rigid. I think it can look that way when you're starting out. But the reality is people make different choices.
Kalpana Srinivasan:They take different turns along the way. There are many different modes to success, personal and professional. And you really have to free yourself from this idea that if this doesn't look natural to me, or I don't see myself being like that person who's very successful at what they do, that's fine, you're going to find your own way to get there. And you just need to be very comfortable with that. You need to be comfortable with the I don't have a perfect model of every aspect of what I wanna be.
Kalpana Srinivasan:It's totally fine. You're gonna pick and choose. So things you look to somebody and you say, well, I really admire that trait, or I really hope to replicate the kind of work they've done here. But in other aspects of my professional life, I'd like something more like that. And I I think that the idea that there's some singular way to get there is is not true, and it's sort of a false myth.
Kalpana Srinivasan:But it's a dangerous one because I do think it leads a lot of people to feel like, gosh. If I can't do it that way, I just shouldn't be in this profession at all. So a couple of different themes there. One is tinkering is a beautiful thing. It's part of what allows us to really explore ourselves, and people should feel and lawyers, young lawyers especially, should feel more freedom to try that and to try the thing that might be a little riskier or might be a little bit off the beaten path and to know that it might turn out to be very rewarding, or it might turn out to have been the wrong choice.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Wrong, meaning a fixably wrong choice. Yes.
Khurram Naik:You can go
Kalpana Srinivasan:somewhere else. Mhmm. And these things are set in stone. The second is that the arc of your career is hopefully really long. So the fact that you spent a couple of years doing something and then realized it wasn't exactly what you wanna be doing.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Well, okay. That's that's, again, part of figuring out where you're going. But if you have a long career, it's really a blip in the timeline. And I think it can be hard to see that when you're in it. It feels like you're making choices that you shouldn't or that you've given up precious time.
Kalpana Srinivasan:But, really, it's just a it's a small sliver of what you're gonna be doing in your career. And then, you know, finally, just to have that sense of self worth and self confidence that it's okay to figure out how to do things in a way that you may not have seen done before. And don't you don't have to be caught up on on thinking of yourself as a trailblazer or having to be a pioneer out in the woods. It's not that dramatic. There are definitely models for ways to do bits and pieces of it.
Kalpana Srinivasan:It's more having the confidence in yourself that you're gonna find the elements that are right for you and lift from them and build a path that's natural for you, but not to be put off by the legal profession if you don't if you think it's you're gonna struggle in some aspect of it because it doesn't fit exactly right on the way you operate. Make it bend and mold to you rather than the other way around.
Khurram Naik:Yeah. Those are excellent points. And, you know, on the topic of show, don't tell, I think you've modeled those. So, really appreciate the completeness of that. Well, this was wonderful, Kobana.
Khurram Naik:I'm so glad we did this. I learned a ton here, and just this is a really awesome conversation.
Kalpana Srinivasan:Thank you so much, Kurram. I appreciate you putting in so much time and getting to talk to you too.
Khurram Naik:Thanks.